[1] Colleen Madamombe was born in 1964 in Salisbury, Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe following independence in 1980), and received her secondary education at school in Kutama, between 1979 and 1984.

Colleen became close friends with fellow female sculptor, Agnes Nyanhongo, and rapidly developed her own style of sculpting in the three years she stayed full-time at Chapungu.

While some of her early work was inspired by observation of ants, bees, butterflies and caterpillars, Colleen became best known for her depiction of women and their Shona culture.

[3] Her female figures quickly became a symbol of womanhood in Zimbabwe and were adopted by the Zimbabwean International Film Festival as the trophy award for all winning women entrants.

[7] Works in that exhibition included almost all the well-known “first-generation” of Zimbabwean sculptors, for example Joram Mariga, Henry Munyaradzi and Bernard Takawira.